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- [00:01]
Narrator
The holidays are about spending time with your loved ones and creating magical memories that will last a lifetime. So whether it's family and friends you haven't seen in a while or those who you see all the time, share holiday magic this season with an ice cold Coca Cola. Copyright 2024 the Coca Cola Company Critics and audiences are falling in love with the Fire Inside.
- [00:25]
Jacquese Thomas
As long as I'm boxing, I'm gonna be okay.
- [00:27]
Narrator
Based on the inspirational true story Damn.
- [00:30]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Proud of you y'all.
- [00:31]
Jacquese Thomas
Golden girl.
- [00:31]
Narrator
It's knockout, crowd pleaser. The whole family can agree on my.
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Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Baby going to the Olympics.
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Narrator
It's this generation's Rocky.
- [00:37]
Jacquese Thomas
Can't nobody beat me.
- [00:39]
Narrator
You'll stand up and cheer. It's one of the best movies of the year.
- [00:44]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
You represent out there. Something I would do with it.
- [00:46]
Narrator
Flynn the Fire Inside Based on the incredible True Story rated PG 13 inappropriate for children under 13 in theater's Christmas.
- [00:52]
Jacquese Thomas
Day holiday magic is in the air and DSW's got all the shoes to make your season extra merry. Believe you've got parties to attend and lists to check twice. So DSW is taking care of the detail like gifts to make their eyes all aglow. Styles that bring joy to your world. Brands everyone wants like Ugg, Nike, Birkenstock and more and deals to make your budget bright. Find the perfect shoes for you and yours at a DSW store near you or dsw.com the holidays are here, and.
- [01:24]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
So is the IKEA Winter Sale. Now's your chance to make the holidays a little more magical and less expensive. Save up to 50% off on select items in store and online now through January 7th. Plus IKEA loyalty for members get an extra 10% off on sale items offer valid in the US through 17 mall supplies. Last selection may vary by store and online. See store and ikea-usa.com wintersale for complete terms. Restrictions apply. What is this place? Welcome to Cloud 9. How exactly did I get here?
- [01:53]
Jacquese Thomas
You're a Toyota Crown driver, and only Crown drivers ever reach this level of pure bliss.
- [01:59]
Narrator
The captivating Toyota Crown Family Toyota let's go places.
- [02:03]
Jacquese Thomas
My name is Jacquese Thomas and you're listening to Black Lit, a podcast about black literature and the stories behind the storytellers. There is so much we can take away from this exploration of Octavia Butler's work. At every turn, her narratives compel us to reflect, question and reimagine the world as it is. With every interview, a new depth of insight into her psyche is revealed. We've only cracked the surface and there is so much more to discover the complexities of her life, the choices that she made, to dedicate her existence to the craft of writing during a time where she didn't have strength in numbers, she was one of one. As we transform our experiences, observations, and perspectives into the stories for tomorrow, inevitable questions surface. Butler's inquiries into the human condition opens pathways into understanding the mind, envisioning the future and unraveling how our past has shaped our bloodlines and family structures, she wrote, all that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change. The power of influence and the exploration of identity, themes that resonate throughout her entire oeuvre. Her work prompts endless questions and ideas, with each page and interview revealing new discoveries. Her writings beckon us to lose ourselves and then rediscover paths we never conceived, only to lose ourselves once more in the richness of her imagination. These layers are not merely for enjoyment, but provide a textured ground to examine in seeds of thought, seeds in which I can only hope will continue to be planted for the next generation. Over the last few years, the word legacy has occupied my mind with a new significance. Legacy is the opportunity to leave behind something of value, something that not only inspires but also enriches lives long after we are gone. Butler's legacy endures. Her works are now a part of educational curricula, discussions on podcasts, and are being adapted for television and theater. Kindred, her popular narrative and the very first of her works to be adapted to television, tells the story of an American bloodline and the horrors that occurred in order for the lead character and her family to exist. Kindred asks readers to examine the truth of our history as a country, and it's not a soft swallow, but a harsh reality that Butler doesn't shy away from. The importance of knowing and the sensitivities around accepting what happened to confront what is. Butler challenges us to confront these truths head on, not as passive observers but as active participants seeking understanding in the wake of a divisive election. The harrowing truths of our past and present intertwine like persistent weeds at our roots deep beneath the soil. Butler anticipated with somber pragmatism, but no less hope. Hope remains a consistent anchor to cling on to a beacon amidst the turmoil as we stand here 30 years. From Butler's introduction to parable of the Sower, one must wonder how she would interpret the current political climate, societal divisions, and the environmental degradation. This quote from Eddie S. Glaude Jr. Stood out to me this week when we imagine the world as it could.
- [06:48]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Be and use that imagination to critique the world as it is, all of.
- [06:52]
Jacquese Thomas
Us have that capacity, the capacity for a moral imagination that sees well beyond the opacity of of our conditions. Because if we can envision an alternative world, an alternative future, surely we can create it. Brandon Jacob Jenkins, the creator of the Kindred series, joins us in a conversation later. But here are a few of his thoughts on the power of our imaginations and A necessity to have the freedom to imagine.
- [07:29]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
The black imagination is profound, you know, and we have to have unfettered access to imagine whatever we want, however we want. And it's the obligation of the creative to constantly celebrate that and honor that and defend that. Because if someone's out there not letting your life and your history and your context on this planet get into that space of viewership and imagining something's off, beware.
- [08:00]
Jacquese Thomas
Octavia Butler championed science fiction Afrofuturism during her era, but now the fire is lit amongst many writers, creatives and citizens. So what are you thinking? What observations and questions are emerging and your own self reflection, because that's where it starts. What alternative world can you create despite the pervasive uncertainty? What will be your legacy? How will you use your voice, your pen, your action to shape the world beyond what it is, or what was? Octavia's predictions were based on patterns. History repeating itself, humans repeating themselves and falling over the same line as in the sand and then drawing it all over again just to fall all over again. What will be your legacy?
- [09:16]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
We can be better human beings than that. But it's so tempting to be greedy and have power and keep it from other people.
- [09:28]
Jacquese Thomas
America, it is time to draw something new through the lens of a moral imagination with the depth of knowing that everything we touch changes and the need to heal at the root is dire so that we can grow past our stunted patterns.
- [09:52]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to.
- [10:07]
Jacquese Thomas
But it's impossible to ignore the irony of the time, the date, the topic, the year, and an exact journal entry from Lauren olamina on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024 in Parable of the Sower, in which she writes about the President elect and her concern about what they have ahead of them, she writes, dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn't vote for anyone. He said politicians turn his stomach during this election Millions of people decided not to vote, not to show up at all. Coincidence, perhaps. Having read Power of the Sower and all of the things that were essentially predicted or calculated just from her watching NPR and just understanding the possible outcomes. And in the state of the world that we're in today, how do you feel about what she prophesies and how these things have come to be? As a writer, as a black man, how does that sit with you?
- [11:28]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Whew. I mean, I think the important thing, you know, her great message inside of that was about adaptability and community and a deep understanding that change is the constant. And, you know, how do we imagine our way out of the world that we've imagined our way into? That's really. That's really the. The clarion call, I think, you know, we're talking just days after the election and people are still feeling all kinds of feelings, but I know those feelings are going to be different feelings tomorrow and the day after that. And the thing to do is to stay present and to locate one's dignity, locate one's worldview, and always articulate what you feel and what you know. And you keep history alive through the stories you tell. You keep your sense of self and your sense of community alive through the stories you tell. So that's what I kind of take away from her whole project. She didn't have to write these books, you know, and we're all very grateful she did write these books. And I think it's up to us to kind of take as an example for ourselves why she chose to write these books. You know, that's what she decided to spend her life on this planet doing. And how do we be inspired by that kind of human action? That's sort of my. That's where my mind takes me. Well, that's where I'm today. That's where I'm staying on Friday, November 8, 2024.
- [13:18]
Narrator
The holidays are about spending time with your loved ones and creating magical memories that will last a lifetime. So whether it's family and friends you haven't seen in a while or those who you see all the time, share holiday magic this season with an ice cold Coca Cola. Copyright 2024 the Coca Cola Company.
- [13:40]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
We have one more act for you this evening. I don't even need to say his name. Mr. Bob Dylan.
- [13:46]
Narrator
A complete unknown is now a Golden Globe in critics choice nominee for best picture.
- [13:50]
Jacquese Thomas
Bobby, what do you want to be?
- [13:52]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Whatever it is they don't want me to be.
- [13:54]
Narrator
Timothee Chalamet astonishes as Bob Dylan in one of the best performances of the year through the bums of D in your prime. And critics rave. Edward Norton is absolutely fantastic.
- [14:04]
Jacquese Thomas
70,000 people are here, and Bobby is the reason for it.
- [14:07]
Narrator
This Christmas, they just want me singing.
- [14:10]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Blowing in the wind for the rest of my life.
- [14:14]
Narrator
Don't miss the movie. Critics are hailing five stars. It's pure cinematic magic.
- [14:21]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Turn it down.
- [14:25]
Narrator
To AFI and the National Board of Reviews. Top 10 films of the year.
- [14:29]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Make some noise.
- [14:30]
Jacquese Thomas
BD track.
- [14:31]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Some mud on a carpet.
- [14:34]
Narrator
A complete unknown. Only in theaters. Christmas Day. Rated R. Under 1790. Middle without parent.
- [14:41]
Jacquese Thomas
You are now listening to black lit.
- [14:46]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Well, the thing about Kindred that was very important was it was a kind of watershed book for her. It was sort of. You know, I think if you take the kind of complete body of work of many great artists, there's always, like, a book that feels like a turning point where nothing else could have happened unless this book had happened. And I think that Kindred was that for her. Like, I think in some ways, she, like, was born as a writer through the writing of that book. And, you know, she would say, I. Since we've come rather close with Marilee Heifetz, who is her great champion and her agent and currently her literary executor, and has really done an incredible amount of work to keep Octavia in the imaginary and keep her alive and keep her legacy alive. Mary Lee told me that she would say to Octavia, you really should write a memoir. And Octavia would say, I've already written a memoir. It's Kindred. And that there was something about that book that was very personal and that was. That was a book of a young person trying to make sense of what they cared about and trying to figure out the themes that would motivate them and carry them through the rest of their body of work. And when I began to sort of look at it through that lens, you know, I'm a teacher, and I teach writing. I've been teaching writing for over a decade. You know, you do see in young writers, you know, you see what them. You see they're actively wrestling with in those early works. And I really let that. What I see her doing is actually trying to find the confidence to be a black female writer. You know, I think it's no mistake that it's about. You know, I always said the arc of that book is she's the black female writer married to a white male writer who's very successful. But in the end, the book that's in your hands is her book, technically, right, that it's about a woman claiming an identity as an author and artist and a person through this strange traumatic experience that's part imagined, part reality, part historical, part contemporary, you know, and that was really, that was really fascinating. And I also was really moved to learn more about, you know, she. It's hard for people to understand now, but like, she was a real researcher at a time when research was not easy and she was not affiliated with the university, she was not an academic, you know, and she really was so. Such an autodidact and so self motivated that she paid her, she. She paid for a Greyhound bus that took her all the way across the country to do research on this book at a time when, you know, we, we don't understand how lucky we are to live or be living in an era that is dedicated to the memorialization of the American chattel slavery and like the memory of it. But at that time, which was, you know, right around the country, celebration of, it's like bicentennial, you know, nobody was out here caring about this stuff in a significant way, writing about it, memorializing, theorizing, historicizing it, you know, that was. We're looking at the very beginnings of the birth of like African American studies as we understand it in a lot of ways, you know, and so for her to like decide she's gonna write this book, pay her way on a Greyhound, be on that bus for however many days to go to like, basically where I grew up, you know, Maryland, Eastern Shore, D.C. and look at these crumbling plantations that do not have government funding, you know, and try to piece together enough sense memory and reality to kind of go into herself and tell this story is a profound undertaking with no Internet, no nothing. You know, it's ridiculous. And Marilee also told me that all through her career she was obsessed with. She would like, record things on her, like, on like, on like cassette tapes. And she would make these essentially she'd make podcasts for herself.
- [18:58]
Jacquese Thomas
Like audibles, right?
- [19:00]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Audibles, yes, by herself. She would make them, you know, and she would just, she just had a methodology of bringing that knowledge to her and synthesizing that knowledge. And her work is proof of how, you know, that work yields more than just the knowledge itself. In some ways, people argue she was a prophet in many, many of these books, but she was definitely making these interesting arguments through fiction about things like genetics, epigenetics, like provenance of racial, you know, racial, like, like interracialisms and forms. You know, she was doing all this stuff in an imaginative Way that now, of course, we have entire shelves of scholarship kind of talking through the reality of, you know. So that was really just inspiring that if you really just dig down into your calling and you take the work seriously and you just get what you need at whatever the cost, there's real yield there. One of the things that I tell people who are reading my work critically is that what they bring to it is at least as important to them as what I put into it. And that's true. Once we sold the show, sold the idea, at that time, Huntington Library had just received her papers, and no one could really get access to them. And honestly, nobody wanted access to them because she wasn't really in the air.
- [20:19]
Jacquese Thomas
Right.
- [20:19]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Say in like, 20. When was this? Must have been like, 2014, 2015, around then when we actually sold it. And Marilee was like, listen, you can. I can get you access to this library. So I flew myself out to la and I, like, went to that library every day and. And they had barely organized these things. I mean. Cause she wrote in these scraps of paper, you know, that was the beginning of me trying to really get inside her mind, because I felt like that was my obligation as an adapter, was to, like, just know every inch of her intention and every inch of this book. And I read, like, her. Her, like, multiple drafts and, like, half drafts and false drafts. And I was like, man, this woman really. We're not joking around with nobody. She was really a deep, deep, deep, serious thinker and writer. And I couldn't just come at her with like, there's just gonna. Everything you. Every thread you pulled just took you on a whole journey. And I just wanted to know every part of that map. So that was part of my process for the many, many years I was gestating the series.
- [21:22]
Jacquese Thomas
So knowing that it was her, essentially her memoir, wanting to make sure that you're capturing her intention of the book. Did that play a role in your character development within the series? Cause I know there were some changes that were made. But how did you maintain that intention within the changes?
- [21:42]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Within the changes? Yeah, I think what I did. Well, I want to say I don't think it was. I don't think she's being literal about it being her memoir. I think that what she was sort of saying is that she told her emotional story through that. You know, I think it was about trying to. First of all, yes, it did, because it was about what I felt in the book. What I wanted to do in the series was to do with the trick of the book, which is that in the end, you realize this whole thing is a memoir of an author. But it was about. I think she very intentionally wanted to write about a driven black female creative in an industry that in which she was. Was just gonna be, like, automatically a weird anomaly. And I also felt like one of the things about Octavia that I loved is that she never. You know, my other queen mother is Toni Morrison, which, you know, Toni Morrison has this whole origin story of, like, I went to the library. I read all the children's books on the bottom shelf, and in the next shelf, it was Dostoevsky, and I read all that, too, you know, and so her story as a writer was very much in. Justifiably wrapped up in an exposure to, like, great literature and the formation inside of herself of what it meant to be a great author of literature. But Octavia's story is very different. Where Octavia read whatever her mom, who was a domestic, could bring home from the houses she was cleaning. So she was reading comic books, she was reading manuals, she was reading whatever she could. So she didn't have, I think, a necessary division between high and low literature in her conception of herself and that she had to be someone. She was someone who understood the value of watching things that most people would write off as not, like, disposed, like, disposable or not valuable or not meaningful. And so I needed to make. I really wanted to make a character who was like, I'm out here to bring dignity to the thing that sustains so many people I know and look like me, but you're gonna write it off as not meaningful enough. And I don't care, because that's what. Oh, that's what Octavia did. She was the only one in her field for so long. She was the only black woman, you know, and that's a lot. That is a lot. And that takes a lot of commitment to stay there, you know, and that felt kind of important to me. And also, just looking at how in the drafts that I read and kind of, in some ways being able to track the evolution of the finished project and seeing where her mind went and the roads she went down and why she decided to back up out of them versus go down some of them, I was like, oh, I actually think there's ways to honor this impulse she had in a television form in a way that she couldn't necessarily. She knew. That she somehow instinctively knew she couldn't actually pull off in a novel that needed to be about 200 pages, you know, so, yeah, that did all kind of. All that was there, definitely, in living in me and with me through that whole process. And of course, you know, making TV has other challenges, but everything I did, I tried to do in the grain of what I had come to understand was her thinking and as a creative. At that time in her life, one of the often cited kind of aha moments was she was in a class, and I think it was a history class, where some students stood up and was like, if I go back in time, I would have killed all these Uncle Toms and these house slaves, this, that and the other, and she was going home to a parent who was a domestic, you know, and just that. That experience of, like, wait a minute, you know, there's something that's so poisonous about our history that people don't even acknowledge that the people in these. In this history didn't know the future. This is the only world they knew. And they were still human beings who had to navigate the reality. They.
- [25:40]
Jacquese Thomas
Right.
- [25:40]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
You know, as we all are today. You know, and just the profundity of that thought was to me, like, Right, of course. Like, it's so easy for people to want to judge any story about slavery because all we've received is like, a copy of a copy. But if you'd stop for five seconds and think about these people's lives, they. They had no reason to believe that this was not going to be the history of humanity forever and ever. So when you have that thought, how does your behavior and your sense of entitlement and your relationship to violence or violence, you think you'll do, shift or change? You know, that's really the story. That's what's. That's the interesting story.
- [26:18]
Jacquese Thomas
I remember you saying something in an interview once that, you know, this idea of binging gives us an opportunity to almost approach it as if it were a book. But can you talk to me about, like, your approach to time and. Because I feel like even in the first eight episodes, we got through a good amount of the book, and I'm so curious. I don't know if you can talk about it, if you're still shopping it, if there's potential of it ever being another season.
- [26:44]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
I don't know, y'all. It would require a lot of activation, you know. Well, one thing I knew is for a long time, I think people were like, why has this not been made yet? And I think one of the issues was people were trying to make it a movie. And the truth is that, like, part of the effectiveness of that book that she Manages so beautifully. And I think you really see her, like, get better and better at this. Like, I think Parable is a great example of this, is you have, you know, part of the emotional experience of those books is how much time you spend with these people. You know, it's getting to know the people and feeling how important it is for them to be changing so vividly over time. That's what part of the book is about. If you think about the arc of, of Mrs. Whalen, Margaret Whelan, you know, by the end of the book, which we didn't get to in the show, but she is a totally different person. And it's also kind of implied that that woman is the reason why Dana's line gets to continue on some level. Right. So. But you could only feel that you can't feel that in two hours. That's not gonna mean nothing to you. If Glenn Close to whoever is really mean for like 10 minutes and then 20 minutes later, she's like old lady and she's blind, like, it's just gonna feel different. So I was so early on, I was like, yes, it has to be tv, because the tv, you're constantly having to ask yourself, why would an audience member bring this person back into my living room every week? Because what you're trying to build is a relationship to characters. You're trying to build familiarity. You know, you think about these, these long running shows and it's like you literally feel like, you know, Arya Stark. But you would not have that same experience if Game of Thrones had been a two hour movie. You just wouldn't have, because it's about the time you spend with people. And truthfully, yes. And part of, also part of what she. What was so revolutionary about what she was doing in Kindred was talking about how it's easy to pretend that the worst part about slavery is that people got whipped. But the truth is people's lives were robbed from them. People were trapped, they were incarcerated. The theft of your time is the crime. And how do you really show that to people unless you give them an experience of what it is to live with these people in this world and wake up every day in the same captivity. That's really the. That's where the heartbreak is. You know, it's not just the precarity. It's not just the ways that the system is built to contain and demean you. It's the life you lose. It's the social death. That's the phrase Orlando Patterson uses. That's the real crime.
- [29:10]
Jacquese Thomas
The sexual Violence is such a sensitive thing that is a part of that generational trauma is a part of all of these things that we essentially sometimes don't want to talk about, why we don't want to even watch, or people are constantly saying, we don't need another slave movie. We don't need another slave. Contextual idea. But in so many ways, I'm like, yes, we do. Because there's still so many conversations that we are refusing to have. And I think that's part of it. And doing it in a series makes the most sense to me because of the sensitivity of it. You can't put that in someone's face so immediately. I mean, you can, but why would you want to if you want to create a dialogue, Right.
- [29:53]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Especially when it was a sexual violence that wasn't like one off. It was systemic. It was systematic. You know, the economy of slavery depended on the sexual violence. The sexual. The repeated sexual violation and assault of women, of black women. That's what it was. And, you know, the thing about Kindred, quite as it's kept, is it's a family story. It's a family drama. When she goes back and she meets those Whelans, she's meeting her actual ancestors. That's the reveal. You know, Margaret Whelan is her great great great grandmother. Tom Wayland is her great great great grandfather. You know, and her life is the product of all kinds of violence. I mean, literal. I mean, that's Alice's arc, right? That's like. That's the real moral craziness of that book, is what Dana realizes she has to do in order to keep herself alive.
- [30:51]
Jacquese Thomas
Man. I mean, it's a heavy book.
- [30:56]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
It's a lot. It's a lot.
- [31:01]
Jacquese Thomas
It's a heavy book. I have to ask. I have to ask this question, Kevin.
- [31:09]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Mm.
- [31:10]
Jacquese Thomas
What was the reason for changing the dynamic of their relationship? I have a theory that theory might be there.
- [31:19]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
I mean, what. What specifically about their dynamic are you thinking about?
- [31:31]
Jacquese Thomas
They're not married. They're not a couple. They're not, you know, the relationship is not at the depth as it was in the book. When she started going in the past.
- [31:42]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
There were an incredible number of drafts. So, you know, I don't. You know, making TV is tricky. It's not. It is not like painting a painting. It's not writing a poem. It's not even writing a play. You are in constant negotiation with a corporation represented by any number of pretty much well meaning people. And you're trying very hard to. I was. I just felt Like, I got to. I got to get Octavia to people. That's, like, what I'm. You know, that was my fire inside of me. And there were many, many, many, many, many, many, many drafts of this pilot in which these two were married. There's a multiverse in which I made this show in which they're married, and I'm very happy that I did that. I would say that two things. The marriage, as represented in the book, which people seem to, like, close one eye to, is not what we would consider functional or. Or I would say. Or I would say progressive. Right. He's significantly older than her in the book.
- [32:58]
Jacquese Thomas
Yes.
- [32:58]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Right. In a way that we would all kind of like, I think if we had to watch that every week, would have questions about. He's also described in the book as, like, not attractive at all. He's, like, short. He's, like, got white hair. He's got crazy eyes. He seems aggressive, and he has, like, extremely paternalistic impulses towards her that are. That can make people pause. Right, right. She's supposed to type up his. Type up his stuff for him. You know, there's a wild moment. They have a wild fight early in their relationship where, for some reason, I know a lot of people would not forgive him. And this character kind of inexplicably lets this man back in her life. So if you're talking about really trying to recreate that specific marriage for a contemporary audience, there will be bigger questions. I don't think that everyone's instinct will be like, they're in love, and it's a deep love. I think that she's actually written a very. I think in some ways, the story of the book is actually the two of them learning really what love is like. They kind of bond through the experience in a way that makes that marriage at the end feel genuine enough that she keeps this man out of jail once she comes back with no arm, you know, And I think that there was a desire to. I think I desired for there to be the possibility of watching this character have a love story in real time, rather than taking it for granted or presupposing that's our. What would it mean to ask the question of how this woman might inside of this horrible experience, where she is literally a commodity and at risk of being violated at any moment. You know, what if inside of this, we could actually give her an emotional story that felt productive or safe or evolving or deepening or something that was also happening. But there's other things I can't say on the Record. That's all I can. That's all I can say.
- [35:17]
Jacquese Thomas
That's fair. That's fair.
- [35:18]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
But. But it's. You know, for people who think I didn't want, you know, I did. There are actually versions of this script that were very, very close to the book. But TV's another. It's a different kind of animal than another. And I always thought, well, you know, who liberated me was Marilee. She was like. Octavia always felt kind of ambivalent about adaptations of her work because she was like, it'll never be the book. It'll be its own thing. And as long as people read my books, that's all I care about. And so I thought, okay, right? Like, my job here is not to replace that book or anybody's experience with that book or even my experience with that book. It's to kind of give it a different iteration and hopefully in a satisfying enough way that it sends you back to the book, and that book has accrued a different layer of meaningfulness or something. You know, that was what I always felt when I was making it.
- [36:10]
Jacquese Thomas
That makes sense. That's one of the reasons why I started this podcast. And it's happened already. We're like, oh, I should go back and reread Parable of the Sower. Oh, I should read Kindred, or, oh, I need to learn more about Octavia Butler. And I think that, you know, you kind of want to just ignite the spark.
- [36:26]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Exactly. Because I trust. I mean, you and I both know we can trust those books enough to make their own case. Like, you don't even need to make a podcast. You know, like, you can lose your whole life and mind and everything spirit in those books, like a lot of people I know have. And they're. They're just more than either of us could sum up, you know, and just talking about them, you really have to experience them. You really have to live in them, live with them. And I'm just so fortunate that somebody in my life gave me the wherewithal to kind of stay tenacious. I mean, maybe it's Octavia. So I'm saying, like, all these people, like Toni Morrison, nobody was checking for blue, as I. You know, she was just doing these things on the weekend. She had a good job. You know, nobody saw the future coming and understood just the profound revolution she was engendering through her, through language, through the way she engaged language. So you just have to sort of have faith in the work you're doing and listen. I mean, I'm never afraid to Listen to people who have something to say. That's the other thing. Like, I'm always willing to have a conversation because I do believe I put in the work to say what I'm saying. And maybe something didn't get across to you the way you wanted to hear it, or maybe you just didn't hear it, you know? But it's always going to be difficult talking about the reality of history to people. Like, one of the crazy, repeat kind of things people kept saying when Kendra was on the air was like, do we need another thing about slavery? Another thing about slavery? And I was like, well, first of all, I said this over and over again. I was like, there's a trillion TV shows about wealthy white families doing evil stuff. One trillion of them, right? And they win award after award after award after award. So when I come along and do one of maybe two or three shows in the history of television that has even partly taken American slavery as part of his storytelling, I'm being told it's too many. There's a quota, right? When I want to talk about the reality of my history and my family's experience in America, there's a quota. You know, there's something about that where I was like, I was just glad to go on TV and say that to people and just be like, this is interesting.
- [38:54]
Jacquese Thomas
Right? They weren't expecting that sermon.
- [38:56]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
We got a church today. But that was real. But that's why that stuff matters, because it's like, actually, no. Yeah, there's another one. You don't have to watch it, actually, because Lord knows, I don't watch every show about cops. I don't watch every show about firefighters. I don't watch every show set in the hospital. I don't watch every show set on the farm or, like, about cowboys. That's the amazing thing about living in the golden age of tv. You ain't got to watch what you don't want to watch. But that doesn't mean that somebody out there doesn't want to watch it, doesn't need to watch it. It was just wild. But that's the kind of policing that only happens with black content, right? That's. They don't truly. Nobody else experiences that.
- [39:36]
Jacquese Thomas
If you could, would you adapt another one of her books?
- [39:41]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Oh, my God. I mean, it would take. Yes, I would. Yes. The answer is yes, I would. I would. I'll be honest. When I was, like, pitching Kendra, nobody was checking for her. And then once we got picked up, man, all her books got optioned. And I don't Know where those things are? I don't know where. Garrett's parable stories. I'm waiting for it. HBO was gonna do Fledgling. What happened? Like, people gotta talk. They were gonna do dawn. Avery DuVernay was gonna do Dawn.
- [40:06]
Jacquese Thomas
I saw that.
- [40:07]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Yeah, yeah. Can we tell the story of what happened? Because there was gonna be this thing, you know, But I would, of course I would. Because I really do have a kind of. It's like I'm also working on this Prince project and meeting all these Prince people who are like, he was like a religious figure to them. You know, they are like. They go into raptures. They pull me into closet, show me tattoos and like, it's too much. But I feel that kind of way about Octopilia where I feel like I literally was like my job. I'm just like one of her soldiers. I'm like, let me just give people read these books. Like if I could just get people to read these books. Read these books. I know. I just know that something's going to change. Because what she was doing was more than just fiction. It was like she was trying to build a community of thought around some ideas. And so, yes, the answer is yes, I would do whatever anybody wanted me to, honestly. But it was not easy. It was not an easy time to make television. It was not an easy television to make. And yeah, it was. I got some gray hairs.
- [41:03]
Jacquese Thomas
Oh, man, I can only imagine. I'm sure there's a lot of off book conversations.
- [41:08]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
That's premium subscribers. You the gifting premium premiums. I'll tell you. I'll tell you what. It went down in this. In Atlanta in the fall of 2020. Whatever.
- [41:29]
Jacquese Thomas
And kindred we are trans.
- [41:32]
Narrator
The holidays are about spending time with your loved ones and creating magical memories that will last a lifetime. So whether it's family and friends you haven't seen in a while or those who you see all the time share holiday magic this season with an ice cold Coca Cola. Copyright 2024 the Coca Cola Company.
- [41:54]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
We have one more act for you this evening. I don't even need to say his name.
- [41:59]
Narrator
Mr. Bob Dylan, a complete unknown, is now a Golden Globe in critics choice nominee for best picture.
- [42:04]
Jacquese Thomas
Bobby, what do you want to be? Whatever it is they don't want me to be.
- [42:08]
Narrator
Timothy Chalamet astonishes as Bob Dylan in one of the best performances of the year. And critics rave. Edward Norton is absolutely fantastic.
- [42:18]
Jacquese Thomas
70,000 people are here and Bobby is.
- [42:20]
Narrator
The reason for it this Christmas.
- [42:23]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
They just want me singing blowing in the wind for the rest of my life.
- [42:28]
Narrator
Don't miss the movie. Critics are healing. Five stars. It's pure cinematic magic.
- [42:35]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Turn it down.
- [42:35]
Narrator
They laugh and named to AFI and the National Board of reviews. Top 10 films of the year.
- [42:43]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
Make some noise BD track some mud on Carpet.
- [42:48]
Narrator
A complete unknown. Only in theaters. Christmas Day. Rated R. Under 1790 meter without parent.
- [42:53]
Jacquese Thomas
Transported back to a tumultuous era where the outcomes of many of our ancestors was uncertain and often bleak. Yet hope remained a steadfast companion. Contrastly in Power above the Sower, Octavia Butler draws from the news and societal eras to paint a future our present day as a dystopian landscape where faith leads as the main character. This prompts a reflective question I posed earlier. What will be your legacy? What stories are you crafting from your current observations? And how are these experiences impacting your imagination? These practices of interpretation are not passive activities. They actively shape our ideology for tomorrow and influence how we internalize what unfolds before us. Brandon suggested we conclude with the Book of Martha, one of Butler's shorter stories that challenges us to envision our role in the crafting of our worlds, inviting a deep, introspective look at how we might use our powers of creation to influence our realities. I hope this summarized excerpt enables you to see yourself and your potential more clearly, pushing you to think about the legacy you wish to leave behind and the stories you choose to write. How will you use your insights and your voice to shape a future that reflects the best of what we can imagine?
- [44:47]
Brandon Jacob Jenkins
I think that's a consistent theme and probably one more liberating and radical thrust of her body of work is about the imagination and what it is that we possess. This faculty of conceiving our reality as being different than it is and how that the exercise of that is important because that's where our agency is as actors in the world begins, you know, and that so much of the world, you know, when things don't go great, what's usually happening is someone's trying to suppress that potential in people, in subjects. Right? Is one of the ways you do that is through robbing them of their language, which gives us access to that right. It gives us access to bringing our interior into the exterior. It's a little, maybe a little, little hoot, a little cuckoo. But that's just what I always find in all of her. That's the kind of the continuous thread is a real emphasis on interiority and especially black interiority. And I always find that these themes for me completely resolve themselves in this little short story of hers called the Book of Martha, which is never where I tell people to start, with Octavia, where I tell them to end. And it's a conversation between a character named Martha and God. But over the course of the story, you know, you realize that God and Martha have a relationship. You know, like there's a connection between them that has lots to do with, I think, what we're talking about.
- [46:16]
Jacquese Thomas
In this scene from the Book of Martha by Octavia Butler, Martha experiences a profound and symbolic moment with God. As they enjoy sandwiches together, Martha brings out sparkling apple cider for her divine guest. When she returns, she is startled to see that God has transformed into a woman resembling Martha so closely that they could be sisters. This transformation inspires a conversation about perception and identity. Martha expresses her confusion and frustration over why it took her so long to visualize God as a black woman. Questioning the authenticity of her previous perceptions of God as a white or a black man, she says, it does bother me if I am doing it. Why did it take so long for me to see you as a black woman, since that's no more true than seeing you as a white or a black man? God explains that Martha sees what she has been conditioned by her life experiences to see, implying that her perceptions are shaped by her own personal and cultural background. The exchange deepens as Martha considers her own ideological constraints, her mental cage, what she thought she had escaped. She has always envisioned God in the limited human constructs available to her. White, male, human. God's response is enlightening. If Martha were truly still confined by those limits, she would be witnessing God. God's responses enlightening. If we were were truly a cage, God said, you would still be in it and I would still look the way I did when you first saw me. Suggesting that Martha has indeed begun to transcend her previous constraints, this scene, although short, captures the theme of self realization, the breaking of mental and cultural conditioning, and the expansive nature of divinity beyond human imposed identities. It challenges both Martha and the reader to reflect, to reflect on the boundaries of perception and the potential for growth well beyond them. Black Lit IS a Black Effect Original series In partnership with iHeartMedia I, Jacques Thomas, am the creator and executive producer alongside Dolly S. Bishop. Chanel Collins is the director of production. It is written by myself and Bria Baker. Our researcher and producer is Jabari Davis and the mix and sound design is by the humble Duane Crawford. Special thanks to Hoshanda Saunders, Sheila Liming, Edward champion, Bruce Duncan, Dr. Reynaldo Anderson, Kristin Zwicker, Niecy Shaw and Brandon Jacob Jenkins. Thank you. Also, if you're looking to become a writer or in search of a supportive writing community, join me for a free creative writing session on my website, blackwritersroom.com blkwritersroom.com or hit me up directly for more details. Underscore T H A T S P E A C E that's peace.